Jessye Norman

American singer, one of opera's foremost dramatic sopranos, known internationally for a voice described as soprano on top, mezzo at the bottom. Norman was inducted into the Georgia Music Hall of Fame in 1999, and became a Spingarn Medalist in 2013. Apart from receiving several honorary doctorates and other awards, she also received the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Medal of Arts, and was a member of the British Royal Academy of Music. She had a background of educated, genteel black bourgeoisie, one of five kids. Talented from youth, she won a musical scholarship at 16. Since then, she sung at virtually every major opera house and concert hall. From 1965 she had been winning important awards, an impressive array of medals, diplomas and prizes. She launched her career abroad with European tours 1970-1973. Norman was an imposing 5'10" (1.8 m) with queenly radiance, a captivating presence. She loved shoes, loved the color red, enjoyed gardening as a hobby. Her tendency to weight was a constant problem that did not detract from her regal manner, free of pretense or arrogance. On 6 May 2014, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt published Norman's memoir, Stand Up Straight and Sing! In 2015, Norman suffered a spinal cord injury. She died at Mount Sinai–St. Luke's Hospital in Manhattan on 30 September 2019, aged 74, from multiple organ failure and septic shock, secondary to complications from the injury. Link to Wikipedia biography